Accelerating into the holidays

December is going to be a little insane…

In part, it’s a natural consequence of the holiday – a couple of weeks off with family at the end of the month, returning at New Year’s.

In part, it’s a natural consequence of business rhythms – closing a development phase, opening a fundraising round, organizing timelines, contractors, and budgets for the new year.

And, in part, it’s what I want - taking in the Christmas markets and spending seasonal time with friends in Maastricht and Cambridge.  From Christmas choral concerts in Cambridge to Gluhwijn in the Vrijthof, it’s a special time of year and filled with events that I don’t want to miss.

And so the schedule fills.  This week, it’s a quick trip to Chicago to organize a clinical trial for the spring.  Waiting until January would delay the whole study by a month, but hard fundraising deadlines mean that we need to push forward.  So it was that I boarded Aer Lingus today for a one-day trip to the Windy City, fingers crossed as a major storm swept east after dumping a foot of snow on my parents in Boulder.

It was the first time on the airline – intensely green but clean and modern.  I caught up with budgets, reports and back episodes of Blue Bloods as the plane pushed through 120 mph headwinds, arriving 2 hours late at O’Hare.  I think that we were barely moving forward at times: the little airplane icon crawled across the map.  At least the trip home should be equally accelerated.

So, then, back in Cambridge Tuesday for Meerkats and Avatars, the pitch event at St John’s Innovation, then the ferry to Maastricht on Thursday.  Back to Cambridge Tuesday for a Board Meeting Wednesday, another on Thursday, to my parent’s house on Friday, Seattle on Sunday.

‘tis the season!